"Obama:...Two years ago, I warned that, because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time.

Last year, I wrote to the secretary of the Treasury to make sure that he understood the magnitude of this problem and to call on him to bring all the stakeholders together to try to deal with it."

I have not noticed the McCain campaign confirming or denying this claim made by Obama. I have not noticed MSM or alternative media confirming or denying this claim.

Moving on to last night's vice presidential debate, we hear this claim from Senator Joe Biden...

"BIDEN: Well Gwen, two years ago Barack Obama warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a sub prime mortgage problem. John McCain while Barack Obama was warning about what we had to do was literally giving an interview to "The Wall Street Journal" saying that I'm always for cutting regulations. We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain and he's a good man, but John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate.

So what you had is you had overwhelming "deregulation." You had actually the belief that Wall Street could self-regulate itself. And while Barack Obama was talking about reinstating those regulations, John on 20 different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation. As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry." Source: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html

So there it is. In the last two debates the claim has been made that the most merciful Obama attempted to save us all from this fate.

Clearly, I am skeptical of this claim and would like my fellow Freepers to weigh in on the truthfulness - or lack of truthfulness - behind this.

the Dems have been praising obama to no end this week with this bail out.
not once have the republicans even McCain said about obama being on the take,Franks making this whole mess and on the take plus calling for franks to step down

not once

have the mentioned about how much money the Dems got especially obama, not once have I heard a connection from republicans saying about ACORN and obama together

have I missed something, did we just let the Dems keep punching us and we’ll take it

7
posted on 10/03/2008 3:04:24 PM PDT
by manc
(Marriage is between a man and a woman no sick Ma sham marriage - -end racism end affirmative action)

Barrak the Prognosticator... He foresaw the failure of Iraq... But he didn’t see the success of the surge. He Foresaw the failure of the financial industry due to Sub-prime mortgage mess but he didn’t foresee his need to put forth a Senate Resolution to deal with the coming Frannie/Freddie failure?

Will he foresee his coming impeachment after his ACORN relationships and its direct ties to this mess are uncovered?

I don’t get it?

Is he REALLY THE ONE?

11
posted on 10/03/2008 3:06:53 PM PDT
by Typical_Whitey
(The Republican Party has given up its shot at the 08 Presidency. All hail OBAMA.)

I not only want to see a copy of the letter, I want to see the copy that whoever he sent it to actually received! It’s all too easy to type up a letter, back-date it, and claim it as what you sent way back then. (Fake but accurate?)

It’s sort of like wanting to prove/use a speech that no one actually recorded back when it was given, so you just re-record it from a copy of the speech you just ‘happen’ to have lying around so you can excerpt it as proof that you were right, way back then. Sort of like hopping into the Way-Back machine and ‘correcting’ the record.

Sheesh, I can’t believe the MSM is letting him get away with it. Hold on, I guess I really mean is that I can’t believe that the MSM is going to get away with letting Obama get away with it.

OK - I havent done this before.
How do I revise my books?
**************************************
Just write to Obama at the US Senate and he will mail you a full page sticker that has the “corrected” text to paste in your copy of the congressional record.

What I find astounding is that no one is talking about Biden stating that he and Zerobama want bankruptcy judges to have the power to reduce not only mortgage interest rates, but the principle balance as well.

That is the most astonishingly stupid and dangerous thing I've heard from any politician during this entire election cycle.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) proposed a sweeping set of federal reforms Tuesday to combat mortgage fraud, ratcheting up enforcement and creating a national database of brokers who have been disciplined.

That addresses outright fraud at the mortgage broker level.

It does not appear to address other problems that led to the current situation. Like offering sub-prime borrowers loans they would not be able to repay when the rates adjusted, lenders begging mortgage brokers for high interest loans to purchase so they can be packaged and sold to other investors, or packaging these loans into other financial instruments without clear documentation of their true value.

[snip] at a hearing in the House in 2004, now available in video on YouTube, the Republicans sought to expand supervision and regulation, over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Federal regulators testified that the reckless financial practices of these two government-sponsored enterprises threatened the entire financial system. Republican after Republican called for a new regulatory authority to supervise Fannie and Freddie and impose standard bank regulation on them. Franklin Raines, the former Clinton budget director who went on to serve as chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, testified that the mortgage-related securities of these two organizations, which have now rocked the entire financial world, were “riskless.” During his tenure, Raines criminally led Fannie Mae to falsify its books so that he would qualify for excessive bonuses and compensation eventually totaling $90 million... The following year John McCain was one of three co-sponsors of legislation to impose such regulatory supervision and controls over Fannie and Freddie. The Bush Administration supported this as well, in one of its four attempts to win legislative approval for such expanded regulatory authority. But the Democrats shouted these proposals down as an assault on affordable housing for the middle class and the poor... [end]

No, no not irritated at all... just do not think that it is breaking. Rush talked about this almost a week ago, he just was amazed that Obama could even try and pass this off and that, of course, the MSM was giving him a free pass on it.

33
posted on 10/03/2008 3:27:48 PM PDT
by zimfam007
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.)

OK - after reading the letter I see Barak was aware - like the rest of americans - that many people were going through foreclosure because interest rates were rising on their sub-primes.

I’m sure this was not news to Paulsen or Bernanke - or to anyone else.

I thought this quote from the speech you posted was most pertinent...

“There are a number of lessons that we must learn from this going forward. We know that much of this could have been avoided if the market operated with more honesty and accountability. We also know we would have been far better off if there were greater transparency and more information had been available to the American people.

To that extent, I believe there are a few steps we should take to prevent future crises of this kind and restore some measure of public trust in the market: First, we need more disclosure and accountability in the housing market. To ensure that potential homeowners aren’t tricked into purchasing loans they can’t afford, I’ve proposed updating the current mortgage rules to establish a federal definition of mortgage fraud and enact tough penalties against lenders who knowingly act in bad faith. I’ve also proposed a Home Score system that would create a simplified, standardized metric for home mortgages, sort of like the APR. This would empower Americans to make smart decisions by allowing prospective buyers to easily compare various mortgage products so they can find out whether they can afford the payments. And I believe we should finally enact the meaningful mortgage disclosure laws that the mortgage industry has been lobbying against for far too long.”

Yep...and some Freepers simply make insipid, ‘change history textbook’ remarks...hey, this is serious stuff!

Point is O is so confident that his media carries his H2O that he can claim anything...I, too am boilind with the lack of calling O on these things...until Mac and Palin do, expect many claims of trees falling in forests and HE WAS THE ONLY ONE to hear it.

“What I find astounding is that no one is talking about Biden stating that he and Zerobama want bankruptcy judges to have the power to reduce not only mortgage interest rates, but the principle balance as well.

That is the most astonishingly stupid and dangerous thing I’ve heard from any politician during this entire election cycle.”

I thought I must’ve heard it wrong until I saw the freeper thread on it today.

I’m going to call my bank tomorrow and see if they can knock off $50K off my principal.
Heck, I’ll shoot for $80K. Why not?

You have asked a very good question! And, it’s definitely something Obama and Biden should be answering, and McCain should be pointing out if he hasn’t done so already.

This comment does not address the main point of your post. I would however, like to share this as it addresses part of it.

There are two words that are essential for Americans to understand when discussing this. Those words are, “Deregulation” and “Oversight”. Currently, the word “deregulation” is used, when what Americans think they are talking about “oversight”. There is a difference, and the liberals try to pretend there is not. They use this misunderstanding to their advantage when they spout the propaganda.

Deregulation is GOOD. Deregulation means that the government is not going to be able to interfere with the Markets. Decreasing Regulations simply means that Congress is not going to be able to set in stone maximums, or minimums in the markets, or within a business itself (like price controls for instance). Deregulation means that we would no longer allow the Government, its various agencies, or corrupt businessmen (like Frank, and Dodd) to say companies must do something that makes bad business sense, and leads to creating a crisis in the markets due to financial institutions losing too much money over a short period of time, thereby effecting the entire market (like what happened now with the mortgage crisis).

What the liberals mean, and what the average American THINKS they mean is OVERSIGHT. A huge difference.

Communists try to equate Capitalism with Criminality, when in fact, there are of course, criminals in all groups of people (including Capitalists and Conservatives). However, support for Capitalism and Conservatism does NOT mean support for Criminality.

This is why we must make a point to inform people about the difference. John McCain has been introducing and trying to get passed rules for better oversight of Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae for years and years, now.

The real kicker (no pun intended for those DU’ers reading this...)? Even Bill Clinton has gone on national media, to make a statement on record, saying that he himself tried to get the Democrats to increase oversight on these companies while he was President, and his OWN PARTY leaders fought him on it and blocked his attempts, too!

So clearly this is a problem with those who blocked these necessary reforms. Two of those people happen to be the House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank(D). Another is the Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd(D). Both of these men have been a part of Congress for a very, very long time. They are not new to Washington. They are part of the “old boy network”. The same type of “old boy network” that Palin already took down in Alaska.

I just wanted to be sure everyone realizes this, because I think it’s something we perhaps may need to explain to friends, and family. People need to realize who is to blame - not JUST Dodd and Frank - because we need to get rid of the rotten apples ASAP.

“That addresses outright fraud at the mortgage broker level.
It does not appear to address other problems that led to the current situation. Like offering sub-prime borrowers loans they would not be able to repay when the rates adjusted, lenders begging mortgage brokers for high interest loans to purchase so they can be packaged and sold to other investors, or packaging these loans into other financial instruments without clear documentation of their true value.”

Yes, you’re right.
So he is exhibiting a slippery Clintonian trait here.

He is trying to APPEAR like he did something significant about the BIG problem we are facing today and denying McCain credit for doing anything.

Except - what was more important?

Cleaning up Freddie/Fannie? - or keeping folks in houses when they couldn’t afford to pay on them?

Obama has lately taken to accepting credit for a lot of things he has had nothing to do with.

He claimed it was his idea to increase FDIC insurance from $100,000 to $250,000. That was the HOUSE GOP group’s idea put forth last Saturday night, if not before... Obama stated in a speech in Reno that it was HIS suggestion made to BUSH!

There have been other cases like the one you pointed out about Iraq, and the one above, too. I have to wonder — do you think that Obama believes these things about himself, or is he just flat-out lying? It reminds me of how Gore claimed to have invented the internet! ;)

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